Welcome to the 31 Days of BPD – it’s Day 23
May is Borderline Personality Disorder awareness month, and I will be uploading one video a day, every day in May to raise awareness of this illness.
In this video, I will be talking about how to manage a BPD episode. There are five steps to managing an emotionally intense episode and the fourth one is discussed in this video.
STEP FOUR – DISTRACT
- During an episode, it can be very difficult to overcome the emotional intensity
- Distracting yourself by actively doing something that you’ve practiced regularly and planned ahead of time is important because…
DISTRACTING – sends your illness a message that you are going to be in control of how you behave and act
DISTRACTING – gives you something else to focus on until your emotional level decreases
DISTRACTING – gives hope that the illness can be managed and that the emotional episode will not go on forever
WARNING: Do not make big decisions when you’re in an episode, you may regret it when your levels are lower.
IMPORTANT NOTE: -Wait until your emotion level has gone down before you go to this step. It might trigger you and make your episode worse if you are trying to challenge at level 5.
Distracting/Self-soothing activities
• Clean house
• Colour
• Computer game
• Cook
• Cuddle under a blanket with a soft toy
• Dance
• Do volunteer work
• Doodle/draw
• Get away
• Go to a movie
• Have a hot drink/cold drink
• Hobby
• Jigsaw puzzles
• Listen to music
• Look at photos
• Meditate
• Meet up with a friend of family member
• People watch
• Play a musical instrument
• Read positive affirmations
• Play with bubbles
• Read a book/magagzine
• Sing
• Sit in the sun
• Sleep/rest
• Visit other people
• Walk
• Watch tv
• Word puzzles
• Work on a project
• Yoga
Thank you for taking the time to watch this - I hope to see you for the next instalment of the 31 Days of BPD coming tomorrow.
Please subscribe to my channel for more videos about mental illness and leave any questions or comments you may have in the space below.
Take care
TLBP
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As with all my videos, I'm trying to explain everything as clearly as possible and provide examples from my life to help you understand. I might not get everything right every time, but I wanted to give it a go, and I hope it will be of benefit to you. This Vlog is from my perspective, but I do appreciate that not everyone will have had the same experience as myself - we are all different after all. I have also tried, where applicable, to reference everything correctly, but we are all human and make mistakes - please stick with me.
Blog: thelittlebluepot.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TLittleBluePot @TLittleBluePot
Twitter: @TLittleBluePot
References:
- Bruce Pfohl, MD and Nancee Blum, MSW (1997) STEPPS™: Group Treatment Programme for Borderline Personality Disorder Manual UK. www.SteppsforBPD.com
Useful numbers and information:
National Suicide Prevention – 08000 684 141
Mental health line UK - 0300 5000 101
Sane line UK - 0845 767 8000
Samaritans - 08457 90 90 90
Mind information line (Info and advice) - 0845 767 8000
Mind website - mind.org.uk
Time to Change - time-to-change.org.uk
Rethink mental illness - rethink.org
Music - 'Sweet' by Bensound – www.bensound.com
